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Amanda Lindhout forgives
captors and raising money for university scholarship fund
for Somali Women
(Alberta,
Canada,
August 25,
2010 Ceegaag Online)
Alberta journalist Amanda Lindhout, who was freed last
year after being kidnapped in Somalia, told CBC News in a
one-on-one interview that she has forgiven her captors.
Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were
freed last November, 15 months after gunmen in Somalia
snatched them in August 2008. A ransom was reportedly paid
to secure their release.
Lindhout said she was kept alone in rooms with no light
and little food in houses throughout Somalia and held for
ransom under "extremely oppressive" conditions that included
torture and beatings.
At the time, Lindhout said her and Brennan's kidnappers
were criminals posing as freedom fighters.
In an interview, Lindhout told the CBC's Curt Petrovich
she had a choice to make when she came out of captivity.
"You can very easily go into anger and bitterness and
revenge thoughts and resentment and 'Why me?'" said Lindhout.
While there were moments when such thoughts popped up in
her mind, she dismissed them quickly, she said.
"Because I had something very, very large and very
painful to forgive, and by choosing to do that, I was able
to put into place my vision, which was making Somalia a
better place," Lindhout said.
Lindhout's vision is to empower Somali women by educating
them through a scholarship fund. She is raising money, one
donation at a time, by talking to whoever will listen,
including church and community groups, throughout Alberta
and elsewhere.
One recent Sunday, she spoke to a small church
congregation in Sylvan Lake and managed to raise $4,500,
which is enough to send four women to university in Somalia
for a year.
Aurala Warsame, a researcher at the University of Alberta
in Edmonton who is from Somalia, vetted the first applicants
to Lindhout's scholarship program and is monitoring their
progress.
Warsame has helped Lindhout pick 11 women for the
scholarship this year. Two are planning to study
environmental protection, another wants to work as a
counselor to youth traumatized by war. Lindhout's goal is to
put 100 Somali women through university.
"I've never questioned whether or not it was the right
thing to do," Lindhout said. "What else to do after the
experience that I had, than something like this?"
Lindhout interview
Watch the full Amanda Lindhout interview on
The National at
9 p.m. ET on CBC NN and at 10 p.m. local time on CBC
Television (10:30 p.m. NT).
Source:CBC
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